Umpires/Tourney's/Sanction's

[okiedad1961]

Have we reached the saturation point on umps .Too many tourneys or sanctioning bodies?Seems like alot of talk of umps being under qualified or can't hold up under the conditions,or just not enough? Thoughts on this?

 

[Louuuuu]

With every other parent out there starting their own Sally McDaddyBall Team because their kid can't be seen playing Rec Ball, how can you not have too many tournaments with fewer "qualified" Umps? It's a Numbers Game. Eventually, Blues should catch up, but it will take a while.

 

[ech92]

I'm sure you don't mean every team that is new is a " Daddy Ball team " but I would be careful referring to new teams as " Daddy Ball " . First off at some point every team was new , second I remember a couple years back just about everyone referred to Ohio Storm as " Daddy Ball " and if Im not mistaking Storm '01 just won the Dayton Metro . I am not affiliated with this team , Im just using them as an example . As to the main question it does seem that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for umps at some tournaments . There are still some great umps out there but at the same time there are just as many really bad ones .

 

[Louuuuu]

I think you read more into that than was intended, Ech. My point is that everybody is playing travel ball now. In Rec Ball, the games are spread out over six days (weekdays and Saturdays). Not too hard to find enough Blues. Now all those games are condensed into Fri/Sat/Sun at ten different locations across the state. Suddenly we have a problem finding officials...

 

[CARDS]

The number of umpires is not keeping up with the demand for travel sports.
Cincy softball had a recruiting article last year for mens slow pitch and I seen some recruiting post in our local paper for youth recreational leagues. (Mens and Rec. seem to be shrinking in number of teams)...
Youth travel sports is growing and to keep up I think the sanctioning bodies need to do a better job recruiting umpires to keep up with the growth.

All sanctioning bodies are looking for people.
Its not just softball, all sports at all levels, recreational, High school, travel etc. To be a good umpire it takes three or four years growing in the level of play.
There is an investment of several hundred dollars for training/ equipment/uniforms so this also limits recruits.

What I have seen over the past 5 years is sanctioning bodies train, test and ship out umpires "quickly" to try to keep up. Not necessarily grooming or growing new umpires so a lot do not stick with it.

We all know having more tournaments does impact the need for umpires and tournaments needing "two" umpires per game need proper planning.
This has to happen "months before the event", not weeks or days before.

As others have stated Ohio has grown with teams and tournaments but is still nowhere near many other states.
Imagine finding umpires in states that play year around...